Novell's Revenue Sags, Linux Business Soars

By Steven Vaughan-Nichols |
Posted 03-02-2007

It's hard to say exactly what's happening with Novell's earnings, while it continues to audit its past stock-option practices. Still, while awaiting the results from the audit committee, Novell on March 1 announced preliminary financial results for its 2007 fiscal year first quarter, showing net revenue of $230 million.

The first quarter's revenue represented a decline of $12 million, or about 5 percent, from the prior year's first quarter revenue of $242 million.

The loss available to common stockholders from continuing operations in the latest reported quarter was $20 million, or $0.06 loss per common share. This compares to income available to common stockholders from continuing operations of $4 million, or $0.01 per diluted common share, for the first fiscal quarter 2006.

Despite the unexceptional overall results during the first fiscal quarter 2007, Novell reported $15 million of revenue from Linux Platform Products, up 46 percent year-over-year, and $91 million of invoicing, up a whopping 659 percent year-over-year. Linuxmake no doubt about itis Novell's future.

The revenue from Novell's identity and access management was $24 million, down 7 percent from the prior fiscal year's first quarter. Combined revenue from Open Enterprise Server and products related to NetWare declined 18 percent from the year-ago period.